Warning to all well-read people and fans of correct grammar: although I allegedly graduated with an English Lit degree a few years ago, don't expect miracles. I tend to write with little or no forward planning and in a stream of consciousness style that allows me to be too lazy to make corrections.
It's 9.30am on a Sunday morning and I'm sat in my ubiquitous pink dressing gown with a cup of ASDA's finest peppermint tea, gripped with The Fear.
The Fear is something that I (and many others of a nervous disposition, I suspect) have lived with since I was a child. Early in the morning, or late at night, I would be gripped by a nausea-inducing panic about something that I had or hadn't done. This could be anything from a shoddily presented piece of maths homework, an upcoming exam, or an argument with a friend, to a self-induced tizzy that I might sleep through my alarm and miss the train to work, or a sudden realisation that I'd forgotten to phone somebody about something that wasn't even going to be important until later that day.
Everything seems worse during an attack of The Fear. It's as if the cause of The Fear must be addressed immediately to alleviate the feeling of terror and dread, even if it's 4.30am and entirely impractical, and come the light of day, the problem that seemed like a looming mountain of awfulness is actually solved within five minutes and never thought of again, or was never a problem in the first place.
Today, The Fear is all about my upcoming travels; you'll be pleased to know that you haven't been lured to this blog with promises of exotic tales of adventure, only to hear about my current, rather boring, psychological state.
So here I am, sitting at the wobbly Freecycle-gained kitchen table with my cup of too hot, too healthy tea, typing into a laptop and wondering why I can't just lie in bed and be done with it.
I'm worrying about having everything sorted in the next few weeks, what time Cotswold Outdoor opens so I can get my new (orange!) backpack adjusted to fit my ever-expanding lower half, whether I'm going to catch dengue fever in Cambodia, whether I'll have enough money to be able to eat and get accommodation each night in Australia, if I'll be able to get a job in off-season New Zealand, whether leaving my current (comfortable, well paid and fun) job to sod off willingly into the unknown is a very good idea, how I'm going to meet other people, if leaving my boyfriend behind to selfishly tramp about the world and 'get my shit together' is really going to work, how I will get the prescription medication that the doctor won't supply me more than 3 months' worth of, if I will suddenly break down, go mad and start happy slapping members of my tour in America if they break into a chorus of 'American Pie' by Don McClean on the tour bus (I actually dreamed about this the other night and woke up drenched in sweat).
And many, many more thoughts of anguish and terror are circulating about this wee mind of mine, this is just a handpicked selection.
However, above all things, one thought remains in place:
I'm doing the right thing.
Every time I have a little wobble, every time the dratted Fear creeps in and shows its smug, self satisfied face, I repeat the mantra: I'm doing the right thing.
Because I am - I'm bloody lucky to be able to do this. It's like the perfect time presented itself to me and said 'Laura, what the fuck are you doing? Stop thinking 'what if...?' 'wouldn't it be nice to...?' 'I don't know if I can...' and get off your arse and DO IT.'
So I bought the round the world flights in a moment of sheer tunnel vision and stubbornness, a secretive moment of 'nobody, especially not my own fear, will stop me from doing something I want to do'. And the exhilaration I felt after I had the travel schedule put into my hand was indescribable. It immediately conjured up images of reaching the tops of mountains, tapping a diary into a dog-eared iPhone 3GS on a ramshackle bus to the border of Vietnam, drinking cheap beer on a practically abandoned beach, and working for bugger all money but hopefully a few laughs in a horrendously packed bar somewhere on the South Island of New Zealand.
A few months of haphazardly booking a few hostels, looking into employment on the other side of the world and getting some fairly unpleasant and fever inducing jabs has followed. These have been accompanied by gut wrenching visions of myself being dropped off at Heathrow with nothing but the orange backpack (who I suspect might become a Wilson from Castaway type figure during lonely moments) and turning to see Gordon and my family walking out of the Departures building, knowing that I won't see them in the flesh for nine months. At this point I burst into hysterical tears and am intensely shunned by my fellow passengers for having red panda eyes and a perpetually dripping nose. The oft-used phrase 'Man Up!' will be liberally applied here.
So the countdown begins here, folks, and I hope you'll be happy to receive multiple offers to read this blog on Facebook, Twitter and all the usual people-avoidance methods of communication.
I'll be putting a link to all the updates via those media, and also trying to figure out a way that it will email updates to people who have subscribed (for those few crazies not taken in by Facebook or Twitter's alluring powers). If any of you know, I'd love to find out.
Anyway, my hands are tired now, so I leave you with best wishes and hope you're having a good old Sunday bacon butty by now. That's where I'm headed next.
Laz xxx
